Arsenal have had embarrassing defeats already this season, however, Mikel Arteta was never so tactically outplayed in any match as he was against Graham Potter’s men. Arsenal didn’t do too match wrong, there weren’t many individual errors either, yet a presumably weaker side made life difficult for the Premier League heavyweights simply because they outplayed them.
We weren’t poor, they were just better.
Brighton were aggressive and efficient in their press. In that Arsenal backline, the two best passers are easily the two center-backs, Ben White and Gabriel, and they made sure they didn’t give enough time on the ball to either of them.
Neal Maupay and Leandro Trossard pressed the two center-backs, while the Arsenal midfield was marked by their opposite numbers, hence denying them any central passing options and forcing the ball wide to the two full-backs in Takehiro Tomiyasu and Sambi Lokonga (in the build).
Once the full-back received possession, he was pressed aggressively by Brighton players from all sides with an intent to win possession higher up the pitch and causing a quick counter.
Realising their pressing schemes, Arsenal soon avoided passing out to the fullbacks, they tried involving the midfielders closer to their own penalty box but Brighton remained committed to their aggressive pressing tactics.
Eventually, Aaron Ramsdale had to revert to long passes to get out of Brighton’s press. Though that didn’t prove to be too fruitful for Arsenal given the English goalkeeper wasn’t at his best in terms of his long-range distribution and their only target up the field, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, isn’t known for his aerial prowess or hold-up play and ended the match winning just 3 of 7 aerial duels.
Though Aubameyang shouldn’t be singled out, the whole of the Arsenal team looked the second favorite for most duels.
In simpler terms, Brighton took out Arsenal’s plan A, and the Gunners were underprepared for executing their plan B.
Offensively, Brighton were brilliant in implementing their plans, they pinned Arsenal back in their half, stretched their backline, and exploited the consequential space created.
Play One
Play One
Play Two
Play Two
As shown in the above two examples, Brighton players occupy the two wide men for Arsenal, Kieran Tierney, who was, again, functioning as the left-sided winger, and Sambi Lokonga, who was tasked to cover for the Scot’s high positioning. They had the Arsenal duo pinged deep and wide in their own half which opened up space between the left-sided centre-back and the two that was exploited by well-timed runs from the midfield.
In the second play, Brighton did the same on the opposite wing.
For Arsenal, all their good chances came either due to a Brighton error or a well-executed counter, which were few and far apart throughout the game, mostly thanks to their poor hold-up play.
Below are a few examples of how Arsenal failed to sustain possession after they did break through Brighton’s press.
That did change after Alexandre Lacazette was brought on for Aubameyang and right away Arsenal carved a wonderful opportunity for themselves which Emile Smith Rowe couldn’t find a finish. In the hindsight, Mikel Arteta was again late with his substitutions, bringing Lacazette on earlier could have done Arsenal well.
It’s not as if Arsenal didn’t possess the attacking talent to pose a threat to that Brighton backline. In fact, if isolated, Arsenal’s front three would have got better of their counterpart in Brighton’s defense more often than not in a 1v1 situation. However, Graham Potter played his card well, again, Arsenal tried to stretch the Brighton line using Saka and Tierney as a wide outlet but their wing-backs did the trick, who consistently combined with the wide centre-backs to overload the wings.
As shown below in the Visualisations, while Tierney was pinned back, Saka consistently found himself in a 2v1 situation against Dan Burn and the very impressive, Marc Cucurella. Though, to his credit, Saka did a good job with the limited support he got.
Kieran Tierney simply couldn’t impact the game offensively.
Lastly, I would like to address the elephant in the room, why didn’t Arsenal press Brighton?
The reason is simple, the trade-off wasn’t worth it.
As shown, Arsenal were outnumbered in the first phase with Brighton using Robert Sánchez as an extra man in the build-up against Arsenal’s front three. Had Arsenal pressed, it would have opened up passing lanes to the Brighton midfield to be exploited by the extra man.
Brighton were also intelligent in stretching their back-four across the width off the pitch, making it difficult for Arsenal to press and still cover-shadowing their markers.
Arsenal’s tactics were right but looked wrong because they failed to compensate for not pressing. Arsenal wanted Brighton to go long and not play through their midfield and whilst they did, the Gunners simply lost the second balls too often meaning Brighton reached their defensive third with ease anyways.
Let me know your thoughts in the comments below.
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